Before Helen could throw herself into it, the doorbell rang. Through the glass slats of the jalousie door, she saw her landlady, Margery Flax, with a tall glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Margery walked into the room like she owned it, which she did. “Here, drink this. You need your Vitamin C,” she said, shoving the glass into Helen’s hand.
Helen sniffed the glass. It looked like orange juice, but it smelled sort of bitter and perfume-y. There was a lime slice on the rim.
“What’s this?”
“A screwdriver,” Margery said.
“Only in South Florida do sweet old ladies fix you screwdrivers so you get your Vitamin C,” Helen said.
“I’m not sweet, I’m no lady, and I’m not old,” Margery said indignantly. “I’m only seventy-six.”
“You’re right. I was being ageist,” Helen said contritely.
“Well, I’m not that young, either,” Margery said. “But I don’t go on about it.”
Seventy-six years in the Florida sun had left Margery’s fair skin as brown and wrinkled as an old paper bag. Two packs of Marlboros a day didn’t help. Juliana’s customers would be horrified by Margery’s skin. But Helen thought Margery’s lived-in face was attractive. Margery had shrewd brown eyes and straight gray hair that curved at her chin. She painted her toenails bright red, wore a silver toe ring and sexy Italian sandals. “The legs are the last to go,” Margery said, and she showed off hers in purple shorts.
Margery was a commanding woman. After ordering Helen to drink the screwdriver, Margery now ordered her out of the apartment.
“It’s a nice night. Go on out by the pool and talk to people. Peggy’s out there.”
“What about Cal?” Helen said.
“Hah,” Margery snorted, and blew smoke out her nose like a dragon. “That tightwad. What do you see in him?”
“I like the way he says ‘ah-boot’ for ‘about.’ ”
“Now, there’s the basis for a good relationship,” Margery said.
Cal was a snowbird from Toronto. He was forty-five and divorced, with a nicely weathered face and good legs. Helen liked a well-shaped calf, and down here, where men wore shorts to almost everything but funerals, she had much to admire.
“Cal is intelligent and a good talker. I love listening to his stories about Canada.”
“Talk is cheap,” Margery said. “And so is Cal.”
“Oh, Margery, you’re so prejudiced against Canadians. They’re nice quiet people. They make good tourists. They never kill themselves by diving into swimming pools from the tenth floor, like the drunken college kids at spring break. And not all Canadians are cheap.”
“Oh, yeah?” Margery said, cigarette dangling from her lip like a movie tough. “Don’t ever go to dinner with him. Listen, sweetie, I’ve got ads in the paper to rent 2C. I’ll find you someone better than Cal.” She took Helen’s rent money and disappeared out the door in a cloud of smoke.
Helen turned on the fan to chase out the cigarette smoke. Now she would have to go sit by the pool just to breathe. She loved Margery but wished she wouldn’t go on about the cheap Canadians. South Florida residents had a love-hate relationship with their Canadian visitors, who showed up about November and went back north after Easter. The Floridians needed their tourist dollars but claimed the Canadians were cheap. Servers called them “special waters,” because so many Canadians ordered the cheapest dinner special and drank only free tap water.
Helen opened her sliding glass patio door and stepped into the warm, soft Florida night. She was immediately enveloped in a cloud of marijuana smoke from the apartment next door. Phil the invisible pothead lived next to Helen. She’d never seen him the whole time she’d lived there. In fact, she would not believe Phil existed if she didn’t smell the pungent pot wafting through his jalousie doors.
The Coronado Tropic Apartments looked glamorous in the subtropic evening light. Margery and her long-dead husband built the apartments in 1949. The two-story Art Deco building had an exuberant S-curve. The sweeping lines were somewhat spoiled by the rusty, rattling air conditioners that stuck out of the windows like rude tongues. The Coronado was painted ice-cream white with turquoise trim and built around a turquoise-tiled swimming pool.
Cal was sitting on the edge of the pool, his pale Canadian legs dangling in the water. Helen liked it that Cal wore a clean white T-shirt. Too many men in Florida proudly displayed big hairy bellies.
Peggy, in 2B, was sitting next to Cal. Peggy was wearing a black one-piece suit and a green parrot on her shoulder. A live parrot with a pretty patch of gray feathers on his breast. Peggy never went anywhere without Pete, her Quaker parrot. She even took Pete to her office. Pets were strictly forbidden at the Coronado, so when Margery was around, everyone had to pretend Pete didn’t exist. It wasn’t easy. Pete let out the most ferocious squawks.
Since Margery was not there, Helen gently stroked the bird’s soft feathers. The parrot danced back and forth on Peggy’s shoulder, flapped his wings once, and settled down. Peggy did not. She grew increasingly agitated as she talked with Cal. “Don’t blame me,” she snapped. “I didn’t vote for him.”
“That could not happen in Canada,” Cal said. “Our system of government would not permit it.”
A voice on the other side of the bougainvillea said, “If Canada is such a great place, Cal, why aren’t you there?”
Out stepped Margery, defender of America, in purple shorts and red toenails.
“Well?” she said. She folded her arms and waited for Cal’s answer. Everyone knew Cal only went home to Toronto long enough to qualify for his free national health insurance. Then he returned to Florida.
“I never said America was bad,” Cal said finally. “I said Canada did some things better.”
“Squaaak!” Pete said. Helen jumped. Everyone else politely ignored the parrot.
“Think I’ll turn in,” Cal said.
“Me, too,” Helen said. She did not like the way Margery had treated Cal.
Helen and Cal walked back to their apartments, palm trees whispering behind their backs. Helen, who could always talk to Cal, suddenly felt shy. He seemed tongue-tied, too. Finally, he said, “Want to come in? I found some Molson’s on sale.”
“No, thanks,” Helen said. “I’m tired, and I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”
She studied his face in the fading light. Cal’s lips were a little thin, and his nose was a little long to be truly handsome. But the gray eyes were intelligent. It was a strong face, she decided. Manly. His blond hair had gone to gray at the sideburns. It looked distinguished. His neck was just right, not too thick or too scrawny. His shoulders were muscular. She was afraid to consider anything lower. Helen felt too lonely. It had been a long time since she had been with a man, and her ex-husband had hurt her badly.
“Would you like to go to dinner this Saturday night?” Cal said.
Helen thought of Margery’s warning.
“Yes, I would,” she said, defiantly, as if Margery were listening. “I’d like that very much.”
“Good,” he said. “I was thinking ah-boot”—There. He’d said it again. Helen loved the way Cal pronounced that word.—“going to Cap’s Place. It’s an old Florida restaurant from the rum-running days. You can only reach it by boat.”
“But you don’t have a boat,” Helen said.
“They’ll send one to pick us up,” Cal said.
Suddenly, Helen didn’t feel tired at all. She felt like she was walking on richly scented clouds. Not all of those clouds were her neighbor Phil’s pot smoke, either.
Chapter 4
